Solar activity in 2012 could be an election issue believe it or not

[zulchzulu]

OK.

I was looking up the general asshattery that Ron Johnson, the Republican running against Feingold, said about global warming and his assessment that it's merely "solar flares" that are causing the goofy weather. Keep polluting! Don't change anything! That's his dorked-out mantra.

Well... so I was looking at predictions on solar activity and a report by NASA officials came out with this a year ago:

Entitled "Severe Space Weather Events — Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts," it describes the consequences of solar flares unleashing waves of energy that could disrupt Earth’s magnetic field, overwhelming high-voltage transformers with vast electrical currents and short-circuiting energy grids. Such a catastrophe would cost the United States "$1 trillion to $2 trillion in the first year," concluded the panel, and "full recovery could take 4 to 10 years." That would, of course, be just a fraction of global damages.

Worse yet, the next period of intense solar activity is expected in 2012, and coincides with the presence of an unusually large hole in Earth’s geomagnetic shield. But the report received relatively little attention, perhaps because of 2012’s supernatural connotations. Mayan astronomers supposedly predicted that 2012 would mark the calamitous "birth of a new era."

Whether the Mayans were on to something, or this is all just a chilling coincidence, won’t be known for several years. But according to Lawrence Joseph, author of "Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation into Civilization’s End," "I’ve been following this topic for almost five years, and it wasn’t until the report came out that this really began to freak me out."

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/2012storms/#previouspost
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12507

These assessments are from NASA scientists, not asshat theocrats who wack off to erotic Palin Photoshopped images.

So do dingbats like Ron Johnson think that global warming is due to solar flares and does he know about the NASA report? He hates science, so probably not.



Expect Obama and others talking about coronal mass ejections and how we need to work together to deal with it:

A coronal mass ejection (CME) is a massive burst of solar wind, other light isotope plasma, and magnetic fields rising above the solar corona or being released into space.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection

[Xipe Totec]

1. That's his dorked-put mantra.

For a moment I read:

That's his dork puta madre.

[zulchzulu]

2. I edited it... I meant "dorked-out"... n/t

[Xipe Totec]

3. I liked the original better

Or, better yet, dorked-putz mantra.

:evilgrin:

[zulchzulu]

4. Johnson is indeed more than a dork. He is a silver-spooned plastics theocratic millionnaire n/t

[old mark]

5. Rec. Thanks....nt

[zulchzulu]

6. Monday morning kick for watercooler chat n/t

[flamingdem]

7. Ut oh. Maybe the Mayans and the Rapture types are right! nt

[txlibdem]

8. Well this isn't going to improve my 2012 anxiety at all

I'm going to have to double up on my meds, apparently.